


Hallelujah, Bovay, Alabama

by orphan_account



Category: Big Time Rush
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-18 12:58:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3570524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"And that's something new, really. Because the kids at school never wanted to sit next to him. Let alone work with him. They called him freak. They called him boring and cunt.</p><p>Kendall calls him Logan.</p><p>Logan likes Kendall immediately."</p><p>University/Roommates AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hallelujah, Bovay, Alabama

**Author's Note:**

> title is taken from the song 'Nara' by Alt-J.

Love

Love is the warmest colour

Petrol blues, hallelujah, hallelujah

Comes

Saut dans le vide, my lover

In my youth the greatest tide washed up my prize

You

* * *

 

The first person he ever hears to say the word 'Gay' is Carlos.   
  
He's ten, Carlos's fourteen. They're in his room, and Carlos is on the phone with his girlfriend. Logan can tell they're fighting. Not because he can hear it, no, he can see it. The small lines that form on the Latino's forehead, the clenching of his fists leaving his bedsheets rippled. The way he talks slowly. Cautiously. 

"Look, I don't know why you keep hanging out with him. He's such a gay wanker."  He hangs up.

"What?" he asks as he notices Logan's stare. 

"Nothing," Logan says. "Nothing."

The sun is at the zenith and spreads its warmth inside the small room and it's hot, playstation controller wet in his hands and his shirt sticking to the skin of his back in all the uncomfortable ways. 

"A gay wanker?" he asks, eventually. 

"Yeah, you know. I bet he shags blokes. Don't know what's wrong with him."

Logan wants to say _you're right._ Logan wants to say _abomination_. But he can't. 

-

He asks about gays later that day. At the dinner table, and he can see the knuckles of his fathers hand turning white as his grip on the knife tightens. 

His mother chokes on her glass of wine, Elisabeth looks down. 

"Who told you about homosexuals?" his father demands, furious. Logan looks down, fingers wrestling each other in a pathetic display of nervousness. Elisabeth notices. 

His father stabs the air in front of him with his knife. "Who told you?" he asks, again.

Logan looks at Elisabeth, but the eyes of his sister seem glued to his toes. So he shrugs. 

"Carlos said something about it."

His father looks at him, steel meeting chocolate. 

"They're an abomination. A failure in the process. Sinners. They will burn in hell. It's a disease."

 And Logan can feel his cheeks burning and his breath hitching, because he doesn't believe in god, but his father does. 

He never wanted to disappoint his parents. 

-

He's fifteen when he gets caught.

Hands down the pants of the neighbours' son. Lips attached to his neck. 

It's Elisabeth. His siter. Elisabeth opens the door, without knocking because there has never been a reason to knock. Only this time there was a reason.

Logan can see the shock and the disdain and the resentment in Elisabeth's face as she grabs the boy and yanks him off of Logan. 

As she pushes the boy out the door, lips a thin line, she turns around and says one thing. "Don't ever do that again."

And it's only later, years later, he realises Elisabeth wanted to protect him. Tried to shield him from the harsh world that will call his 'preferences' weird. Bad. A sin. 

-

 

At the age of sixteen he enrolls in university, his brilliant mind a ticket into Yale. Doors wide open, rooms filled with knowledge and adventures. The air is thick with unspoken promises and the smell of late summer. 

It makes his skin tingle with anticipation. This is a start over.  

He shares a room with a bloke named Kendall Knight. Kendall's nice. Kendall's older. Bit frail, bit too tall. But he has high ambitions. 

"I always wanted to be a musician, you know? I just want to make people happy." is the first thing Kendall ever says to him.

And Logan nods, because it's a noble thing to do and Logan's polite. 

"I study chemistry and neurochemistry," he answers, a thin smile hurting at the corners of his mouth. 

"That's really cool. I also have neurochemistry, we could learn together!"

And that's something new, really. Because the kids at school never wanted to sit next to him. Let alone work with him. They called him _freak._ They called him boring and cunt _._

Kendall calls him Logan.

Logan likes Kendall immediately. 

-

Logan has always known he is different. While other guys at school talked about _tits_ and called each other _faggot_ and _wanker_ , he would sit alone. A book on his lap, fingers caressing the soft pages filled with stories greater than he will ever live through. 

Other minds are simple, his is filled with cathedrals build out of gold and equations and numbers and they're filled with memories and observations. Patterns and logical conclusions. His mind is a computer. Saving and deleting. 

There's one thing he can't delete. 

When he was fourteen, he had read through the medical magazines of his mother. 

There was an article about the neurochemical influences during a pregnancy and their effect on the child's sexuality. 

A brain belonging to a male heterosexual is similar to the one belonging to a homosexual woman. And of course the other way around.

He knew what hetero and homosexual means, of course. But he didn't know the word homosexual was the one to describe himself with.

He thought it natural, normal, to look at boys that way. He has always found them... interesting. Pleasing. Skin shifting over muscles, rippled shirts sticking to sweaty skin. 

Later he realised what he read is the proof to what his father said.

It's a mutation. A failure. A mistake. 

-

He likes Kendall as a friend, he tells himself. Kendall is a nice guy. The first guy that has even been nice to him, so that's probably the reason why Logan is so confused. And yes, Logan's heart jumps into his throat whenever he walks in to Kendall changing clothes. His pants leaving nothing to imagination and his stomach thin and his legs frail. And yes, the incidental touches they share while their heads are hovering inches over the notes Logan made in class make his skin crawl and his breath hitch. But that's how humans react to touch, isn't it?

And one day, when Kendall hugs him, he has to free himself from his grip. He has to. Because if he didn't, Kendall would feel his heart beating too hard and his breathing too heavy. And Kendall would conclude. And Kendall would be disgusted. 

Logan thinks that maybe, just maybe, he can be hetero if he really wants. 

-

He really wants to like her. She's nice. Camille's nice. She reminds him of cinnamon and fragile violets crushing in his hands.

She studies drama and is a friend of Kendall's, and when they meet he can see her pupils dilate and her hands trembling. She likes him.

They go out a couple of times. Evenings filled with awkward laughter and sweaty hands holding each other. His palms are slick and his feet are pointing towards the door.

His brain is telling him to stay. 

His heart is telling him to run. 

-

She tried to kiss him and he refused.

He never called her again.

-

It's the hardest at night. At night, when Kendall is sleeping only a couple of feet away from him. He can see him. Hear him. The muffled groans when he buries his head into his pillow (he sleeps on his stomach.) and the long sighs when he switches position underneath his sheets.

Logan wants to grab them, pull them away and cover Kendall's body with his own. Touch him. Chest to Kendall's back.

Forbidden thoughts. 

He waits until Kendall is asleep to jerk off, and that's for the best. Even if it would turn him on; Kendall watching him while he holds his cock in his hand. Grip hard, rhythm unsteady. 

No, because if Kendall were awake, he would _hear_ him.

He would hear the whisper of his name, the stringing together of every letter that makes up the word Kendall. Tumbling off Logan's lips like a prayer. 

-

Kendall called him a faggot. And Logan knows he doesn't know how spot on that is, and he knows Kendall is only saying it because Logan insulted him and he knows it shouldn't hurt. 

But it does. 

To Kendall, gay is an insult. 

To Kendall, gays are an insult. 

-

Logan has never been a guy to recognise beauty. If others called something pretty, he assumed it must be.

But Kendall is beautiful. 

He has picked up rugby and to Logan's delight _torture_ it's starting to show.

Muscles shifting like tectonic plates on his back every time he takes off his shirt. 

When he gets back from training, he's dripping with sweat and stained with dirt.

It makes Logan want to reach out, trace the outlines of his smile. Fingers on his lips. 

It makes him want to wipe off the dirt. 

It makes him want to kiss his neck. Emphasising every touch of his lips with a growl and a bite, the sweat like ocean waves on his tongue. 

-

When Kendall's sister gets send to rehab, it breaks his heart. 

Logan can hear him. It's 2 am and Kendall is lying in his bed, sheets covering his broad chest and his fierce, strong arms. 

He's crying. He can hear the fractured breath and he can almost feel the shuddering of Kendall's chest. The tremble of his fingers.

The sounds echo through the room, and with every sniff, with every whimper; they resonate in Logan's ribcage. 

Right beneath his heart. 

"Logan?" Kendall's voice reaches his ears, and Logan doesn't know if he should answer. 

"Logan, can you please come here?" Kendall asks again, and Logan can tell he doesn't expect a response. 

But he stands up, tugs at his shirt and his boxershorts before walking to Kendall's bed. 

"What's wrong?" he asks, crouching. Face close to Kendall's. He can smell the peppermint of his toothpaste, the sweet deodorant. They mix with each other, turn into a perfect blend of axe, menthol and Kendall. It makes him want to lean in. It makes him want to bridge the distance and press his nose against the dip of his collarbone, breathe in. Never breathe out. 

Kendall doesn't answer, he just skids to the wall, and for the briefest of moment Logan thinks he noticed his thoughts. Then he realises Kendall is asking him to join. And Logan wants to say _no homo_ with a grin, and he wants to say _please no_. But he keeps silent, the matress dipping beneath his weight. 

The bed is warm and Kendall is close. They're lying on their sides, facing each other. Logan tries on an apologetic smile, tries to comfort Kendall. But his brain isn't made for poetry, it isn't made for soothing words.

But his body is. 

He puts his arm on Kendall's shoulder, fingers tracing patterns that bear no meaning. His hand wanders down Kendall's arm, touch featherlight, until he reaches Kendall's hand. 

He hesitates. 

He gathers all his courage, all his faith in the ridiculous wish there is someone out there made solely for him.

Kendall stays silent as he grabs his hand; fingers intertwining. 

They fall asleep like that, breaths mingling and innocent touches guiding him through the night. 

When he wakes up, Kendall isn't there. 

- 

They don't talk about it. 

-

Kendall acts like nothing happened, and Logan is not sure if that's supposed to hurt that much. His ribs are cracking by a phantom weight, a constant pressure on his chest. 

He knows Kendall only wanted comfort, he knows Kendall only wanted solace. 

It ignited a fire in Logan's chest, a burning pain underneath his skin. Veins seared and brones battered, nerves tingling. 

- 

Logan has always been an outsider, a bystander. For the biggest part of his life he has always been ignored by the majority of people. So when Kendall asks him to tag along to the party organised by the rugby team, he hesitates. He hesitates and calculates and thinks about it too long. 

He says yes. 

And partly because the fact that Logan has always been an outsider, he never had to deal with _this_. The music is loud, overlaid with shrill catcalls and whoops and the bass makes his bones vibrate with every thump.

He never had any alcohol before, but he can calculate the exact effect a certain amount of alcohol would have on him.

He has three beers, four shots and a water to even it out and he discovers he's a lightweight and finds out calculations can go wrong. 

His tongue feels like it's glued to his palate and everything he says comes out with a slur.

When he and Kendall go back to their room, he discovers something else. 

Alcohol makes you break your own rules. 

Kendall closes the door behind them, sighs as he takes off his shirt and lets himself fall back onto his matress with a silent groan. 

And as he lies there, chest on display, Logan has to look away before he does something really stupid. Like pitching a tent in his trousers or letting himself fall down onto Kendall. 

"What's wrong?" Kendall asks, having slight difficulties with pronunciation himself. 

"Nothing."

"You know," Kendall starts but stays silent after that. And as Logan turns around he can see his trousers are opened. He wants to tear them down. He wants to bury his nose in the soft trail of hair and breathe in. He wants to kiss his hipbones, bite the soft skin of his hips. He wants to touch the places where his bones are cleary visible and sticking out and he _wants_...

He wants too much.

"You know," Kendall starts again, suspiciously eyeing Logan. 

"You always look at me with such sadness. With such softness." 

Logan feels like the air has been sucked out of the room, leaving him to asphyxiate. 

Kendall looks him in the eyes, gaze locked as his hands move down his body. He takes off his trousers, throws them away, observing Logan during the process.

"I've never seen you with a girl," Kendall whispers as he stands up.

Logan's mouth is dry and the cathedrals in his mind start collapsing. 

The proximity is intoxicating. 

"I've never heard you talking about one."

Kendall's taller, but he looks down and leans forward a bit, and Logan mirrors the action; it's automatic, really. 

His mind palace is shattered. Dust and ashes. 

Their noses touch, and for a brief moment Logan thinks _this is it_. 

After that, he forgets to think. 

Kendall's lips are soft against his, a gentle press. 

Logan just stands there and lets himself be kissed, but Kendall isn't having any of that. He grabs Logan's shoulder and pushes him against the wall, and the smaller man finds himself trapped between the hard, cold wall and the warm, sweaty press of Kendall's chest. 

And he gives in. Kisses back, tongue invading Kendall's mouth. It's a slow kiss, and it's a substitute for everything Logan has never been able to tell Kendall.

_(I'm gay. You're hot. Touch me. I'm in love with you._

 

_I fucking love you.)_

Kendall moans into his mouth as he bites his lower lip. Logan can feel the sound vibrating against his chest, and it makes him go bold. 

His hands reach for Kendall's shoulder, pulling him closer. He needs him closer. So much _closer._  

He pushes Kendall away from the wall, guiding them to the bed in a tangled, messy waltz. 

They fall down in a mess of weird angles and long limbs, but they don't mind. As he positions himself on top of Kendall, Kendall puts his hands on his ass, pushing him down. He can feel Kendall's erection against his own and it scares him because it feels better than anything ever has before. He grinds his groin against Kendall's, a desperate search for friction. His hand moves down and he whispers the other man's name into his mouth. 

And Logan is proud on how collected he sounds. How controlled. 

As if he hadn't wanted this since the first time they touched. 

He sounds as if he knows what he's doing. 

"I'm so in love with you," he adds. And Kendall reacts to that with a moan and a stutter of his hips. 

-

After that, they don't talk any more. But that doesn't matter. 

Logan's body has always been better at conversations than his brain. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a story I once wrote (Was once uploaded on a friend's AO3 account, in another fandom, but she deleted everything.)


End file.
